Fever
by coldqueen
Summary: Audrey asks Nathan a question, and he feels compelled to answer. Audrey/Nathan


**Title: **Fever

**Genre: **Television

**Series: **Haven

**Characters:** Audrey Parker, Nathan Wournos

**Rating: **R, mature content

**Spoilers: **_1x04- "Ball and Chain"_

**Summary: **Audrey asked Nathan a question, and he feels compelled to answer.

* * *

He imagined heat would be like a bright light against his closed eyes, overwhelming and impossible to block out.

He thought maybe cold was like the dark, thick and tangible, coating everything until you closed your eyes so that the blindness was voluntary.

Nathan had spent his entire life constructing elaborate metaphors to describe sensations that he couldn't have, as if by putting words to the loss he could control the grief he felt.

* * *

There was a hollow just under her hip bone where he could press his thumb and watch the shivers radiate outward over her skin. It was his favorite spot on her body just for the way light could bend over the bone, shadows turning her ivory skin secretive in a way his mouth couldn't resist. There was a taste there, light but cloying like vanilla with a spark of attitude not unlike cinnamon, that lingered in his mouth hours after he'd left her; it was something he couldn't classify as anything other than "Audrey". Sometimes they'd be working on a case, on the town or in the office, and Nathan would flutter his fingers over her hip, and her eyes would widen and her mouth would open just enough for him to see the tips of her teeth and her tongue caught between them and he knew she was remembering the night before, when he'd bitten softly there and spurred her to climax with only his fingers. Audrey would smile slowly for him, quirking her eyebrow and stepping away before either of them lost enough of their common sense to break unspoken rules about work and sex. In that brief interlude, however, after her hazy thoughts and before her slow but knowing smile, Nathan's own mind would be taken over by a sense of vertigo that only dissipated when she stepped away. His head would spin and his muscles would tighten, his skin felt too tight and his heart too loud; Nathan thought it was as close to burning as he'd ever come.

* * *

Duke jokingly referred to Nathan as a real life Pinocchio, but Nathan knew that Duke couldn't know how close to his own thoughts his old friend had tread. Nathan was a facsimile of a real man, incapable in his mind of truly being one, but willing to ignore the things he couldn't do or be, and play the role as if it wasn't one.

He kept a digital thermometer in his truck, and checked his temperature several times a day, always on the lookout for a sign of sickness that could be his untimely end. His doctor did blood work once a week, he had a fully stocked first aid kit in every place he could be found on a regular basis. He wore light jackets and coats when he saw that others in town were, keeping them in his truck so that he could always be prepared. His talents at blending grew better as he became more experienced, though the knot in his stomach never eased when he was around others. His nerve endings danced under his skin as he waited for someone to point out what he'd done wrong, what detail he'd missed in his approximation of appropriate reaction to environmental conditions. Had he not worn a hat on a too sunny day? Did he not zip his jacket though the cold ocean wind was cutting through the air?

They were small details, the kind no one noticed, but it was how Nathan liked to keep things.

* * *

Audrey sat astride his hips, their bodies joined intimately, and her smile stretched across her face mischievously. "Tell me."

If they'd bothered to turn on the lights before succumbing to their passion he knew she could've seen the blush that traveled across his face as his blood debated which direction on his body it wanted to rush to. She shifted slightly, her hips tilting as she settled into his lap, and Nathan's head reeled as his focus and blood pressure dropped lower on his body. Her name was a choking noise from the back of his throat and she laughed at him so deeply that the muscles that held him so tightly did interesting things that made his hands clench tightly where they held her hips. He could feel the texture just under her skin, solid bone cushioned by soft flesh, and Nathan felt the shaky control he had left continue to slip from his fingers and into hers.

"Tell me," she repeated, shifting her weight again and leaning down so that he could see her face even in dark broken only by the sparse moonlight through the window. Her hair was soft against his face, a barely there sensation that made him remember the butterflies of their first official case as partners.

Nathan slid his hands from her hips up her back, feeling the slickness of moisture that gathered in the small of her back and smiled up at her face only inches away. They shared the same breath long enough that her eyes dropped to his curling lips and she bit her own bottom lip to resist giving in to the physical attraction that had plagued them from their first interaction, held at bay then only by misunderstanding and a mutual comfort with drawing their guns.

"It's like-" Nathan bit off his own words, and Audrey drew ever lower until her lips brushed his ear as she spoke.

"It's like what?"

Nathan flipped their bodies easily with the new leverage, turning quickly but gently until she lay sprawled beneath him, his hips bucking against her in the shuffle. The sparks of pleasure that chased his blood as it circulated in his body felt so good that he couldn't resist repeating the movement and almost lost himself to the act. Nathan was a man made from self-control and he pulled back his need until he stilled within her, and she dragged her nails lightly down his arms in protest.

He levied himself onto one arm, his strength more than enough to hold him there above her long enough to speak the words she didn't know she more than wanted but actually needed to hear. He grasped her wrist and breathed into her palm, passing her prone fingers over his closed eyes before meeting her eyes. "It's like you're here. It's not pain, it's not hot, it's not cold. It's nothing that can be defined by our bodies. You're under my skin and I like the way you feel there."

Nathan pressed a kiss against her mouth and debated whether he'd allow her a response. If he moved now, taking her body in a rush of motion that would leave her boneless and pliant until the early morning then he wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions of his confession, if there were any. She'd asked him to describe it for her, the act of making love and what it meant for a man such as he, and Nathan was no more able to resist her than any other man within the Haven town limits.

Audrey smiled into his kiss and spoke against his open mouth, her legs tightening around his hips. "I like the way you feel under my skin, too."

Then they didn't need words, and Nathan was grateful because silence punctuated by the sounds of their lovemaking was far more enjoyable than his fumbling through trying to say things he preferred to keep to himself.

* * *

Review, please.


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